Paul Reed Smith Guitars

 A very rare guitar! This PRS, McCarty Archtop 2 was built in the year 2000. These guitars were built from 1997 until 2002 and have  a thicker body than the  traditional McCarty 1 and 2. This guitar has a flamed maple top and back with mahogany sides.  The top is a 10 top and the color is violin burst. The back neck is mahogany and the fretboard is ebony. Tuners are proprietary PRS and made of ebony.  The neck pickup and bridged are custom voiced specifically for the guitar. A unique quality of this guitar is the piezo pickup which has stunning acoustical properties.  I have used it with various tube amps and acoustic amps, and in some instances, depending on your amps setting, and if you close your eye's, it is very hard to tell this is not an acoustic guitar. Their are two Quarter inch inputs as you can see from the photo.  One for the pickups and one for the piezo.  However, you can blend all three pickups, for some shimmering three dimensional sounds.  The piezo pickup has it's own micro switch, while the humbuckers have a traditional 3 way toggle. The piezo requires a 12 volt battery that is very easy to change out on the fly if need be.   With a little effort, this guitar is capable of getting myriad sounds.  For example, If you were to play a wedding, you can perform a Bach concerto in  the church during the afternoon, than transition into a jazz set during the cocktail hour, and at night, do a few sets of dance, swing, or classic rock tunes.  Another characteristic I found this guitar to excel at, is sustain, I actually had to limit my compression setting by a quarter turn on my compressor pedal from my 175's setting.  The sustain is also very musical and the body lightweight and comfortable to play. The neck inlays are also interesting, PRS chose to go with a DOT neck look, perhaps to compete with the look of the Gibson 335.  This guitar is in immaculate condition, and has only been out on stage 7 times.  It and comes with a hardshell case and is strung with 11's.    In short, , if you are a collector of rare instruments, and or a serious player who would like to create music from any genre, this stunning guitar will answer your musical whim in spades.